Personify
by Dreams2Paper11
Summary: AU: Owen Grady is perhaps a bit more skilled at taming and handling animals than should be natural. It's nice, though–he's not sure he would be able to handle raising Velociraptors if it weren't for his abilities. Featuring Empathic!Owen and the Raptor Squad.
1. Foundation

**A/N: I haven't even seen this freaking movie yet and I'm writing fanfiction for it. I am officially trash.**

 **Btw I now have an AO3 account. This story is posted there as well.**

* * *

Owen Grady _knows_ things.

Like how his neighbor's dog, a golden retriever, hates it when her owners turn the TV really loud late at night. That's when the flashy, violent shows come on and the noises frighten her. Through the thin walls dividing their apartment complexes, Owen hears her fearful snuffling and anxious skittering of claws over wooden floors, and his heart aches. When 1 am strikes and he suspects the inhabitants have fallen asleep and that the TV will run all night, he resorts to folding his pillow over his ear so he doesn't hear her whimpers. He's eight years old, and there is a very wide, gaping divide between the authority of an eight-year-old and the Authority of an Adult. Namely, one exists, and the other doesn't.

He wishes he could do something, though.

His mother likes to take him on walks. "For fresh air," she says, smiling and smiling and smiling like always but there's a tightness lurking around her eyes. She doesn't know it, but there's a stiffness in her upper back, the way her shoulders naturally slide forward into a hunch and how her eyes can't stay still. Owen knows the look well. He's seen it often in the pitbull two streets over, the one that lashes out and bites people because he fears that the people will hurt him first, as they've taught him they will.

It has to do with his Dad–Dad, who swore not to drink that disgusting alcoholic stuff anymore and promised to stop sleeping past noon and promised to go out looking for a job and promised and promised and hasn't delivered. Again. It makes his mom sad, which makes Owen sad. And angry, in the hurt, indignant way that an eight-year-old can be angry. He just doesn't get it. His mother respects his dad, cowed and tamed like the way the neighbor's golden retriever entreatingly licks the hand of her owner even after a night of running the TV at top volume. His father doesn't respect his mother, or if he does, it's only in fleeting bursts. The relationship is uneven.

Owen moodily kicks an aluminum soda can, then stops and picks it up and resolves to properly throw it away at home. Raccoons can get their snouts or paws painfully stuck in trash like that. As a veterinarian, Owen's mother has been taught all sorts of stuff like that and she is always eager to share with Owen what she knows, who is always eager to listen.

His sweet mother, who respects Owen and respects his dad and respects everything just a bit too much to expect anything in return. Why can't everyone just listen to one another? Why are some people so _dumb?_

"Look, Owen! It's Oreo!" His mother points out, confused but happy. Owen perks up immediately. Oreo is a homeless cat, a black-and-white one, that likes to hang around the old, broken down city park. She's fond of canned tuna (Owen knows this because he smuggles some to her, from time to time) and hates dogs and doesn't like a lot of people, except she tolerates Owen because he can tell when she wants to be left alone and when she really just wants some tuna.

Sure enough, her lithe form slinks down the street, head swiveling and low to the ground, as if she's hunting for something. Strange. She lives almost exclusively in the park, and they are still quite a few blocks off.

Owen's mother whistles, goes down on her knees, and Owen follows her example. Oreo's head jerks up, ears swiveling in their sockets to face them like radio dishes, whiskers like antennae.

"Here, girl," Owen's mother calls lowly, voice unthreatening and relaxed. She almost sounds slurred, like a blanket has covered any sharp consonants in the words, smoothing them out to an even, beckoning noise. It's a good kind of slurred, very different from the slurred his dad makes after too many of those brown bottles.

Oreo weaves back and forth, eyes round and alert, ears twitching. Owen stays still, and so does his mother. He wants to see Oreo, yes, wants to pet her if she'll let him, but Oreo is a wild cat in the end and will do as she pleases, and Owen will just have to put up with it.

Coming to a decision, the wary feline trots their way. Owen tilts his head, frowns. Oreo is different today. He sees it in the way her paws scrape against the pavement, her drooping tail and tense shoulders. She is afraid of something, but it's not something she can see or drive off with wicked, thorn-like claws.

She twines around their knees anyway, and Owen's frown deepens as he trails a hand along her spine, feeling the knobs blunted by her loose, furry coat. She is very warm and light, and shakes beneath his touch.

"Oreo's sick," he staunchly tells his veterinarian mother. "Really bad." As if in agreement, Oreo mewls and butts her head weakly against his kneecap, lacking her usual vigor. Her claws slide out noiselessly, then recede, then stretch out again. With her ears plastered against her head, she looks as though haunted by something she can't escape.

His mother frowns as well, rubs her hand down the cat's spine. "Maybe she just isn't feeding well lately. We'll come back tomorrow with some tuna, okay?"

He agrees but lingers to say his last goodbyes. Oreo's claws tangle in the hem of his jeans and she presses into him, shaking, scared, but steadies after a few moments. Her eyes are dull, taxidermy things. She slopes off, tail dragging.

They find her stiff, cold body curled up in an alleyway the next day.

* * *

"What is personification?" asks the teacher, because they are reviewing _literary terms_ in the school library. Owen kneels on the outside of the circle of children, observing and active just enough to blend in with the others. He's good at that. The trick is to find a pack, find a group, and meld with them so well that they don't even notice when you've joined, when you're there, or when you've left. Staying out of the way and actively avoiding confrontation only draws attention. So he ends up getting fantastic class participation grades all the time because he knows his teacher is embarrassed that she can't say that he _doesn't_ contribute, yet can't remember specifically what and when he _does_.

"I know! I know!" Voices chime and Mrs. Leary lets them. Their energy builds and snaps between them, exciting the other kids, and some wiggle on their butts and others stick their hands in the air and wave them crazily for attention. Mrs. Leary claps her hands three times, and like magic, the children hush and mimic the gesture, immediately ensnared by the "game". Mrs. Leary then snaps her fingers thrice, the gesture softer and smoother than the claps had been, and following the decrescendo, the children do their best to imitate the snaps as well. Silent. Attentive. The energy caught, harnessed, and calmed.

"Eyes on me," Mrs. Leary commands softly, but not ungently, and selects someone who had known the answer earlier.

"It's when a thing acts like a human. But the thing's not human, but it does stuff like one," says Bobbi. Owen examines her tilted, eager head, her smiling mouth and puffed chest. Pride. Confidence. Bobbi is one of the smartest kids in their class, and she knows it.

"Good job, Bobbi," says Mrs. Leary, not lingering too much or lavishing her with praise. Just enough to acknowledge her success and laud it before moving on. "Who can give me an example?"

Owen raises his hand. He expands his shoulders and holds his arm straight and directly up. His face is a flat stone of concentration, lowered brow, pressed lips, flared nose. The way you show your intensity or passion about something. The way you get noticed.

Mrs. Leary calls on him. He says, "The shark grinned at the diver."

He's never seen a shark before in real life, but he wants to. Shark week is one of his favorite weeks in the summer, particularly since they started doing specials on prehistoric dinosaurs that lived in aquatic environments.

"Good, Owen. Who can give me another example?"

Kevin, this time. "The cat cried when there was no more milk."

You're not supposed to feed cats dairy milk, Owen knows. His mother complains about it all the time, how its popular misconception in the media has led to hundreds of cases of ill cats. And he's not sure that's personification anyway. Oreo cried as much as she could when she knew she was dying. She just couldn't cry the same way Owen could. He expressed it through tears and a clogged nose and throat. She had showed it by her posture, by her gait and positioning.

"Good job, Kevin," the teacher says. She means it. She thinks Kevin is right. Owen doesn't want to disagree with the teacher and make a fuss over such a small thing, so he lets it go. It's sad, though. If only people weren't content to walk around so blind.

* * *

Personification means giving animals or non-human things humane traits. But what's the reverse of that? What's the word for when humans act like animals?

* * *

He emancipates when he's sixteen and lives with his best friend to evade his unstable and alcoholic father and unstable and fretful mother. They are too open to him, too raw and unfettered and he dislikes it because he doesn't like what such unguardedness reveals. He loves his mother dearly but everytime he looks at her he remembers Sally, the golden retriever, or Jack, the pitbull, from his childhood. Wrong. Bent. Ill. Warped.

He joins the Navy the moment he's able to. ROTC pays for his college tuition and so he studies animal behavior, earning several degrees in related fields. Eventually the Navy gets involved in transatlantic affairs and thus he finds his way into active duty. But after two tours, he's had enough of following orders from men who are consumed with maintaining an alpha authority over their subordinates, whether by means of bullying or incessant heckling or any other rough method. They are the opposite of his mother–they make their authority well-known and heard, but there is no underlying respect in their actions, no mentality that drives them to sit with their comrades in the evening and talk. Owen knows this isn't always the case in the Navy and shouldn't be used as a standard, but the experience leaves him disgusted and aching with a want for something more, something he can't describe, all the same.

He wants but he doesn't know what he wants, surrounds himself with comrades and friends and fellow sailors but stills feel alone. He goes back to collecting degrees.

He actually gets a little famous in the animal-science circles, traveling as a consultant for zoos and wildlife centers, though he has yet to author a book or settle down at some posh university somewhere. The actions don't appeal to him, and he can't stay in one place for longer than four months without getting antsy enough to pack up and leave.

Apparently, he's somewhat of a miracle worker with animals. To his humbled credit, he starts small–observing sheep and goat populations, working out why they huddle and refuse to graze or why the females are rejecting the ram. Then he hops locations and happens to work with ponies, making discoveries about their social interactions in captivity and in natural herd formations in the wild prairies of the Chincoteague and Assateague Islands. A quick stint with snakes–red-sided garter colonies–and he moves on to wolves, and then bird flocks. He is good with all animals in a way that few can mimic. Skittish horses calm in his presence. Flighty wolves linger long enough in the twilight gloom to be captured in photographs for science journals. Lions pace and growl and snarl at him just the same as any other observer intruding too deeply into their claimed territory, but their vocalizations lack bite or true menace, and once the top female chuffed at him in a friendly way and rubbed against their jeep.

Owen loves each animal he encounters, but cautiously. He never forgets that the organisms he mostly works with are bred and raised as predators, as carnivores. That they can chuff at him and purr all they want but if he abandons reason, if he strolls into their midst, they will attack. They will defend their families, their territory, their interests. Owen understands that, and he knows when and how to push and pick at that boundary, and when he should just call it a day. Nature is Nature, an untameable, unmitigatable and vast thing that Does as She Wants, and you've got to deal with it.

One day he gets an email from the secretary of a billionaire named Simon Masrani, a billionaire apparently interested in inviting him out to lunch.

* * *

(He wears shorts to the restaurant.)

* * *

Simon Masrani actually reminds Owen of himself in some ways. The way he handles his money, especially. Masrani uses it but doesn't obsess over it, respects it but doesn't thirst for it. It gives Owen flashbacks of those dim memories from his childhood of stretching out a hand for Oreo and rejoicing when she nuzzled him, or watching as she waved her tail and showed him her hindquarters while darting away, and being content all the same.

Masrani makes pleasant talk until their main courses arrive. Every meal on the menu had been ridiculously expensive. Owen knows Masrani will want to pay for it. Ordinarily, he would stubbornly decline and fork out his own cash, but one examination of the darker-skinned man's face and posture (relaxed, but interested and mentally involved when Owen speaks. Joking, but focused all the same. Authoritative, but willing to listen) and Owen decides he will let the billionaire offer.

"So," the man begins, and sets down his fork and spoon, and Owen almost sighs in relief, because _finally_. "You, in your work, have probably heard of my endeavors."

"Jurassic Park," Owen affirms, sipping his water.

"Yes, the park. What do you think?"

Owen doesn't shrug. The Navy beat such senseless gestures out of him and the animals he works with wouldn't understand its meaning, so the human tendency is worthless to him. Instead, he thinks out his reply before delivering it.

"I think it's certainly incredible, and a modern marvel. And kudos for satisfying animal rights activists with both the treatment of your dinosaurs and the protection measures for the visitors." He swirls the ice in his glass–not because he's nervous about what he's going to say to one of the most powerful men on the planet, but because some of the cubes were fusing together and he had a thought to break them up. Calm, calm, calm. Owen radiates it like a campfire emitting heat. Even when he makes jokes, when he laughs so hard his breath comes in snorts, when he huffs and curls his fingers in exasperation, he is Calm, because he knows how others will act and thus how he will act.

"But I certainly hope you're not forgetting something," he finishes.

"What is that?" Masrani asks, genuinely intrigued. His immaculate suit barely crinkles when he leans forward to rest his chin in his palm.

"That they're still dinosaurs." Owen puts implication and subtle emphasis on the last word, saying all that needs to be said. Sometimes, he has a bad habit of running his mouth with meaningless streams of sentences. He's found that animals like his voice when he uses it the way his mother did, with softened consonants and even tones, so it doesn't really matter what he says as long as he keeps saying something. But other times, Owen knows how to convey an emotion, how to deliver an essay of information in a single clipped sentence, in one ripple of body language. The body is much more honest than the tongue, and he plays his like a beloved instrument or well-oiled machine.

Masrani smiles, slides him a sleek and official-looking folder that is sealed shut with Jurassic World's logo sticker. Owen slits it open neatly with his thumbnail and pulls out the glossy and crisp dossier.

 _Velociraptor Handling and Prehistoric Pack Mentality Analysis Experimentation._

"Well," Owen sighs gustily once he's finished skimming through the documents. He snaps the folder shut, tapping it ponderously against the edge of the table. The maitre d' sends him a dirty look, as though waiting for him to tear the pristine white tablecloth. "I've handled and trained penguins, seals, lions, wolves, and even a llama herd. What can be so difficult about velociraptors, huh?"

It's a joke. Masrani chuckles and Owen laughs harder than he should, considering what he's agreeing to.

 _Velociraptor Handling and Prehistoric Pack Mentality Analysis Experimentation._

He runs the words through his mind again, dwelling on them, chewing on them repeatedly like a cow mulling over its cud.

The title is certainly a mouthful, but one Owen thinks he could get used to feeling on his tongue.

* * *

 **A/N: Reviews are lovely!**


	2. Hatching

Before he finalizes the details of his new employment, Owen insists on a visit to Isla Sorna, otherwise known as the legendary Site B. He's heard all the tales, all the cautionary warnings so puffed up and overblown that they leave you uncertain of what to actually expect. Owen doesn't put much faith in the media-enthused reviews of trips to the island, but he does have trust in the journals of the renowned Dr. Grant, a survivor of a plane-wreck on the island that happened years previous, when Owen was still little. His reports collectively warn of the same thing–don't mess with nature, and don't visit the island.

But Owen has to. A pack of wild Velociraptors flourishes there in the tropical wilds, claiming a sizeable chunk of territory stretching along the island's southeastern border and a decent amount of inland jungle. If he has any chance at all in raising and handling Velociraptors in a controlled and regulated environment, then he first needs to observe them acting without influence–a way of "getting his feet wet" in relation to dealing with natural Velociraptor behavior.

It takes weeks of convincing and applying for licenses and signing off on insurance forms and agreements before he's finally given the clearance to go on a weeklong trip. It's not as much time as he would prefer, but the government of Costa Rica places strict regulations on the preserve–no visits are allowed to extend past the 7 day limit, and no expeditions outside of academic research are allowed. In fact, if it weren't for Masrani's money and quite convincing team of lawyers, Owen doubts he would have been permitted to attend the trip at all, despite all of his academic awards and decorations.

Three other scientists accompany him, all of them likewise cleared for Velociraptor study. Owen is relieved by this, as it means he won't have to split up his time to accommodate diversified research schedules, and he could always use the extra eyes to spot what he misses. Several consultations are mandatory in the days leading up to the departure, where they are briefed on the classifications of dinosaurs dwelling on the island, safety procedures, daily schedules, and directions in case of emergency. It's a bit insulting to be talked at as if he's just a fresh-faced grad right out of college, but Owen brushes away the irritation. He would do the same if he was in charge of such a high-risk expedition as this.

Getting on the island is safe enough. They are flown into the area by helicopter, where thermal heat imaging equipment and motion cameras ensure that the beach and surrounding jungle are clear of any predatory organisms. From there, they are lowered onto a small, quiet speedboat that carries them to shore. Owen loves it. It reminds him of Navy days, practicing speed-loading and disembarking from ships. Salty spray flung up by the prow of the boat crusts in his hair and irritates his scruff, but he deals, distracted by the beautiful spread of classic and coniferous jungle unfurling just beyond the visible white strip of sand.

50 meters inland lies the reinforced entrance to the underground bunkers, a technologically-breathtaking piece of modern ingenuity. The doors are summoned by remote and rise up through the deceptively thin layer of soil, unsealing in two semicircles, splitting a small section of the beach turf into a gaping hole. A descending staircase leads to the recently-built underground research haven.

Owen spends the week on Isla Sorna sweating out of every pore of his body, developing a new hatred for mosquitoes, and barely sleeping at night because of the excitement singing in his veins. In the years since Alan Grant's impromptu crash and escape from the island, new and modern security measures have been implemented and tweaked to perfection. Several camouflaged bunkers had been installed underground, with similarly-buried tunnels connecting them all over the island. Owen and the team make full use of the concealed viewing port cameras they provide to observe the dinosaurs. No open contact is allowed, and the dinosaurs are never given any inclination at all that they are not alone.

Before this trip, Owen has never seen a fully-grown Tyrannosaurus Rex snap up a shrieking Gallimimus as casually as one snags a dorito from the bag. It's an eye-opening experience. He doesn't have nightmares, but he certainly treads softly in the corridors, despite the reassured safety of the underground haven.

A part of him tugs, writhes anxiously in his stomach. He wants to get closer, wants to slip in among these giants and douse himself in their massive presences. That part of him is an idiot, he knows. A secret, thrill-seeking, adrenalin junkie that drove him to emancipate, to enlist, and to agree to raise some of the most deadly apex predators that walked the earth. He does his best to stifle it, and when he can't, ignore it.

The highlight of the trip is, without a doubt, the Velociraptor pack. They move so quickly that it's difficult to study them for long periods at a time, but Owen still learns leaps and bounds about their behavior from gleaned visuals. Any research like this is loads better than what Google can give him.

The scientists agree to view the Velociraptors in itch in Owen's chest is worse than ever when he observes them–when Owen is alone in that bunker room, eyes pressed to his binoculars so hard that they leave circular indents around his sockets, he has to grip the edge of the bench to keep himself from darting out and into a premature death.

The feeling is strange and simultaneously perplexes, disturbs, and excites him. Owen has always embodied the ideal professional animal handler–calm, intelligent, cunning, patient. Never, not even as a child, has he struggled to keep himself in check and had to +work to keep his mind present and grounded.

Living in the underground bunkers irritates him, mostly because they keep him locked inside cramped titanium-enforced walls, like a fish in a sardine can. His fellow researchers are nice enough, if a little academically snobby in the trademark way so many are, but no one tries to steal or copy his field notes, or intrude upon his precious observation time. He's thankful for this, as it prevents them from seeing his frustrated pacing, back and forth, across the tiny, 4-meters long viewing chamber. He doesn't gain much restful sleep, kept awake by an emotional ache akin to forced isolation.

Which is ridiculous because there are three other living bodies right in the next room to talk to, but he can't bring himself to seek them out. There's absolutely nothing wrong with them, really, but they're just...not. Not what he wants, not what he needs. He can't explain it, can't reason it out. It's maddening.

* * *

On the seventh and final day, Owen is awoken by excited whispering from his colleagues. Someone peels back his blanket and shakes the taut edge of his hammock, rousing him from a confusing dream about having a tea party with a T-rex.

"Owen! Wake up! You've gotta come see this!" It's Wendy, the most likeable scientist out of the mix. Her voice is frantic with curiosity and amazement. Blinking blearily, Owen slumps to a sitting position and pulls a new t-shirt over his white tank top. The dim lighting filtering into the sleeping partition of the bunker informs him that it's morning, very early so. His alarm clock confirms it. 4:12. This must be really good stuff, or Owen's going to be pissed.

He locates the rest of the group clustered in the viewing room, chattering in hushed voices despite the soundproof walls. Fingers are flying across tablets, camera recorders blinking and focused on the concealed, one-way window.

"What's going on?" He enquires in a sleep-rough voice, striding over to a free spot on the bench. His fingers twitch, grasping at nothing. The sudden realization that he's left his notebooks and camera in his trunk abruptly crosses his mind, and he frowns.

Peter, another one of the scientists, beckons him with a wave and grins madly. "Look." He points to the slanted window.

Owen does. His jaw drops, and he goes still.

The Velociraptor pack is just outside the hidden viewing port. There are six of them, just as Owen had counted in his previous observations. The coloration on their leathery hides is more prominent close-up–most of the pack is either gray-green or blue-gray, with stronger bolts of color scattered over their flanks. They're not scaled, but they're so near to the one-way window that Owen can see the bumps and webwork of creases in their hides. Two of them have brightly-colored feathers, like crests, poking out from the base of their long skulls.

None of them can see the viewing port, and thankfully show no indication of awareness of the observation team's position. Owen can barely imagine the experiences of Dr. Grant, the bone-deep horror and terror of running from and being pursued by such fearsome predators. The adult ones must be at least five feet tall, possibly six or more when they straighten their spines.

The raptor that the team has already determined to be the dominant female of the pack suddenly blows air through her flaring nostrils, straightening a sinewy neck and pointing her snout directly upwards. Her tail lashes. It's a small movement to her, barely a thoughtless twitch, but it's still powerful enough to batter the loamy earth and send up a spray of dirt and rotting leaves.

In the span between one inhale and another, Owen folds his mind, slotting it neatly into that zone he enters when working with dangerous animals. Like a camera bringing a subject into focus, her posture, her snorting flank and quivering nostril cavities suddenly gain details, sprouting subtextual meaning. The presences of the humans beside him recede into the background, their emotions blurring into nothingness as he concentrates on the alpha.

She's agitated, but not overly so. Just annoyed, really. Another ripple of her thick tail, counterbalancing her over-extended neck and skull. The translucent, nictitating eyelid slides open and shut with languid slowness over the stunning golden iris, her head turned just so for Owen to see it clearly.

The packmates stalk around the perimeter of the clearing. Two of the members, clearly juveniles, hiss at each other and drop into threatening crouches, circling like sharks. Owen spares them a quick glance, dissecting everything. They're not angry, just play-fighting. He reads it in the leisurely sweep of their tails and relaxed arms, the unknotted slope of their spines. One of them, heavily spattered with green pigment along her shoulders, turns her body adjacent to the other raptor and makes small, sideways hops, taunting, her jaws clicking shut on empty air.

Their behavior makes Owen smile.

Without warning, the dominant female pivots on a powerful, oversized foot, re-seizing his attention. Her sickle-shaped claws rise and slice downward in an an abortive movement, churning through leaf matter like hot knives through butter. Now, Owen is beginning to sense actual distress from her. Her flank heaves once, forcing a gusty breath of air through her vocal cords. The ensuing call that leaps from her throat is unique and grabs Owen's full-focus immediately–it's a sharp, trumpeting blast, full-throated and almost like a dog's bark.

Come, it nearly echoes with meaning. Come here. The same primal awareness that gripped Owen at the onset of her noise ripples through the rest of the pack. The two juveniles cease their play-wrestling immediately and snap their necks to the side, staring intently at their alpha as the fellow adults hop down from their perches on a fallen trunk. A moment of relative quiet, intruded upon solely by the breath-hisses of the raptors and their inquisitive click-growls.

Then another call rises through the jungle–a higher-pitched, tinny version of the dominant raptor's bark.

"No way," one of the scientists breathes. Her voice startles him–Owen blinks, shakes his head like a dog shaking water from a mane. He had forgotten that he was in the bunker, crouched among the scientists. For the smallest fraction of a second he'd thought he was out there, watching the proceedings from the vantage point of one of the raptors.

An infantile Velociraptor stumbles out of the underbrush, and Owen stops breathing. Something in his chest gives a brutal twist, throwing itself against his ribs and shaking them like bars in a prison cell. The infant is colored similarly to the alpha female, dappled in tones of gray and blue, with some tan smatterings following the curve of her spine. Her feet–he's not sure how he knows it's a female, but it is, he just knows–are comically oversized for her body, and her tail is long and energetic, still slender with youth. Obviously, the raptor is barely out of her hatchling stage, still being cared for and tended to by the mother. The baby lets out a small, bleating cry. Owen sees hunger in the way she stumbles on her big feet, how her mouth opens and snaps shut as though biting down on a bone, how she tilts her head to stare at her mother with one eye and sidles closer.

Feed me, Owen imagines when she lets out a series of demanding peeps that ripple the muscles in her little, underdeveloped neck. Hungry feed me.

The pack relaxes collectively. The two young adults share sidelong looks, flexing their tails and shifting on their strong legs, as if considering a return to their earlier squabble. The fully-grown raptors hiss dismissively and turn back to keeping a careful watch over their surroundings. The infant hops up to the alpha and jumps with springing grace. Even at her young age, her hindquarters launch her to obscene heights. She leaps high enough to imploringly lick the corner of the alpha's mouth. When she lands, she stands upright, arms curled back against her chest neatly and head cocked in expectant waiting.

The alpha lowers her neck, snorting several times. Her stomach quivers and suddenly a steaming lump of barely-digested meat slides out of her maw, landing with a wet squelch on the carpet of leaves. The baby squeals and crouches, completely engrossed by the apparently appetizing mound of bloody flesh. Owen is reminded of a cat wiggling its hindquarters in preparation for a pounce. After a moment of play-stalking the grisly mess, the infant lunges forward with deceptive speed and instantly begins tearing into the meal, stabilizing it with her smaller front legs while her narrow jaws go to work.

The pack waits until she is finished eating before the alpha nudges the baby hard enough to send her hopping back a few steps. A new, crooning call, punctuated by several clicks. The baby hisses crankily in answer and reluctantly trots to her mother's side. In mere moments, the clearing is empty and still, as if the group had never stopped there.

* * *

He especially doesn't sleep well that night. What hazy dreams do flicker back and forth behind his eyelids always feature absurd visions–baby Velociraptors, living in his house with him as normally and casually as a human roommate, tearing up his sheets and eating all his peanut butter.

* * *

After the expedition is over, he returns to the mainland in one piece, exhausted, but mind humming with ideas and theories. He's been given a tour of Jurassic World before, but the attraction is so massive that he could easily use a few more refreshers and still not know how to get to the nearest bathroom. Plus, every tour takes him past the dinosaur enclosures. He's yet to get really close to them–many of the animals are slightly shy and don't come too close to the viewing ports. In fact, the closest he's ever gotten to any dinosaur at all is the pack of oblivious Velociraptors during his visit to Isla Sorna.

He re-meets a few of the other trainers/handlers and carefully commits their faces and names to his memory. These are the people he'll be living among, talking and conferring and complaining with for years down the road. With this in mind, he is determined to make good impressions. So he smiles and cracks jokes and puns and gets people laughing within minutes of introducing himself to them (well, excluding the fiery Operations Director of the park, Claire Dearing, but she's a stick-straight and titanium soul anyway.)

* * *

Masrani has a bungalow built for him.

Owen loves it. It's tiny, cramped, and more like a small cabin in the woods than a permanent residence, but he loves it regardless. It's lakeside, with a little floating dock attached to his back porch. It doesn't take him long to hook up his trailer and double his living space. In less than a week, he has his two motorcycles transported in on the welcoming ferry, and he spends his free time constructing a shed to house them behind the trailer.

The week before his job officially "starts" is a hectic one. He is introduced to Dr. Henry Wu, Chief Geneticist of the park, and Vic Hoskins, the Chief of Ingen's Security Forces, as a way of getting to know those who will probably be most involved in the raptor project alongside him. Truthfully, he doesn't particularly enjoy either of them.

Dr. Henry Wu is soft-spoken, every thought spliced and stitched together as comprehensively as possible before it even leaves his tongue. He smiles quite often too. It's an insincere expression, one that raises Owen's hackles.

Vic Hoskins–well, to paraphrase, being in his presence makes Owen want to take a shower.

"Now, they're not actually going to be perfect replicas of the dinosaurs the samples came from," Wu tells him, proudly caressing a gloved hand over the humming incubator. Owen hears pride arrogant I did this I did it dripping from every word, dunked in a pungent bath of cool professionalism. "We didn't recover complete, undamaged chromosome samples, so we had to splice a little bit and substitute from extant species."

"What are the effects of this?" Owen asks, mindlessly circling the egg chamber. It feels warm to him, somehow. He trails his fingertips against the curved glass surface and basks in the heat.

Wu scribbles something on his ever-present clipboard and gestures to the nesting eggs with his pen. "Obviously, our climate is more temperate than the tropical jungles of the past, even so close to the equator, so we've altered them to tolerate a wider range of degrees. We also designed them to be bigger, stronger, faster. Smarter, too. We were sure to emphasize a boosted intelligence."

Exactly how all that results from genetic tampering is way over Owen's head, so he lets it go without fuss.

"And the extant species?" he asks.

*"Black-throated African Monitor Lizard," Wu answers. He leans over to check the touchscreen monitoring the incubator and raises the temperature a degree. "This batch will all be female. We can't risk such predators breeding out of strict, controlled regulation." His face twists in displeasure, as though recalling something foul. The expression is quickly soothed over by the detached, pleasant smile.

Owen grins humorlessly. "So no amphibian DNA this time?" He's referring to the infamous incident where the first revived dinosaurs, acting on chemical triggers, changed their sex in order to breed.

Dr. Wu smiles a candy-apple smile. "No amphibian DNA."

"When will they hatch?" Owen asks, crouching onto his knees and trying to squint through the translucent glass.

"We're projecting an estimated time of six days left in the incubator. I understand you've been briefed on the planned hatching proceedings?"

"Yeah. They need to imprint on me, so I have to be the first thing to see and feed them." Shivers of apprehension and excitement run up and down his spine. Baby raptors. He couldn't even take care of the sack-baby in high school, how is he going to manage four bloodthirsty genetically modified organisms?

"Good." Dr. Wu hands him a very thick packet, tapping it with a finger to indicate highlighted areas. "I've compiled this for you–it's an estimated feeding, sleeping, and activity schedule, among other things. Of course, this is new territory for us as well, so a little flexibility will go a long way. I understand the hatchlings will keep you very busy for the first few weeks, but Mr. Masrani has also made it very clear that he expects a weekly account of the project. We here in the labs would also benefit greatly from a more detailed observations report. You can email them to us if you must."

As politely phrased as it is, Owen recognizes orders when he sees them. The only difference is that in the Navy they were yelled in your face. Now, they're lavished in sweet-talk or complicated science-words.

He signs the last few waivers and walks out of the Nursery with a shiny license to raise Velociraptors bouncing on his keychain.

* * *

Apparently the embryos know just how sleep-deprived Owen has been lately, because they thoughtfully choose to begin breaking out of their eggs at 3:20 a.m. It's the sixth day since Owen's visit to the lab, right on time with Dr. Wu's estimation. In the rush to grab the keys of his leased Jeep, he puts his pants on backwards but thankfully catches the mistake before leaving the bungalow.

He makes it to the lab in record time and nearly flies up the steps, flashing the security badge at the Ingen officers stationed outside of the building. They've come to know his face already during his consultation visits to the lab, so they shuffle aside without raising any conflict.

A woman in a starched lab coat waits for him in the lobby. "This way, Mr. Grady, quickly." Her heels click smartly on the linoleum as she guides him into a maintenance hallway. By the tension in her legs and arms, she clearly wants to run to their destination just as much as Owen, but refrains out of sheer professionalism. There's a lot riding on Owen being the first thing the hatchlings see and are nurtured by.

"Screw it," he says in disgust, and lunges forward into a sprint, ignoring the lab assistant's startled squawk. The path to the lab isn't that complicated and he's been down it dozens of times in the past few days. The sound of his boots smacking against the floor fills his ears and he paces himself, drifting back to fading memories of running drills.

He arrives at the lab just as a gaggle of scientists push open the industrial, swinging steel doors. The incubator has been detached from the flooring and lifted onto a wheeled platform. Dr. Wu is murmuring directions as they carefully maneuver the machine out of the tech room. Owen falls into place neatly beside them, inspecting the eggs anxiously. None of them have been broken yet, although they are wobbling visibly and a hairline crack has formed in one.

"Ah, Mr. Grady, right on time, perfect." Dr. Wu, despite the apparent stress of the moment, is as composed as ever. "We're moving the eggs to a pre-prepared location in the building, a "nursery", if you will. Everything you'll need for when they break out will be supplied in the room for you. We want you to be as isolated with the newborns as you can, so please expect to be left under camera supervision for the first few days. I will give you directions via this–" Wu hands him an earbud-like comm. unit and Owen wedges it in his ear "–should you require assistance."

Days in one room with a bunch of baby raptors. Owen can almost hear the dying screams of his restful nights.

"Understood," Owen agrees anyway, and brushes his hand over the glass. The Nursery is only a small distance from the lab room, and with a whole team pushing the mobile platform, the journey begins and ends quickly, with Owen nervously tagging along and keeping careful watch over the wiggling eggs the whole way. One of the female scientists notices this and jokes, "Your first?" with a teasing smile.

Owen manages a strained chuckle, acknowledging how much he resembles a fretful father tagging along to his wife's birthing room.

In moments, he finds himself ushered in with incubator and pauses to survey the new room amidst the chaos. He almost laughs out loud. The room has obviously been decorated to great pains to make it look like a jungle. Admirable paintings of verdant greenery sprawl across the walls, and the flooring is covered by a thick layer of faux grass. A large "nest" of sorts, constructed out of fuzzy blankets, fake leaves, and sticks is tucked against the far wall. A few feet from that is a cot, low to the ground, with a thin blanket and pillow.

While the assistants go to work removing the glass top and transporting the eggs to the nest, Dr. Wu quickly explains features of the room. "There's a camouflaged door set in the wall over there–that's your bathroom. We'll have someone give you your meals and replenish the raptor food through the door flap. Remember, contact me using your earpiece if you have any concerns." He places one of the packets he'd written into Owen's hands. He flips through it briefly and feels relief banish the stress in his shoulders. God bless Dr. Wu. It contains a detailed feeding schedule and a variety of expected behaviors. In the panic to get to the lab in time, Owen had forgotten to bring his own copy with him.

Dr. Wu shakes his hand. "Best of luck, Mr. Grady." And then he and his team are retreating with the empty incubator and shutting the door behind them and suddenly Owen finds himself alone with a room full of hatching Velociraptors.

Breathing deeply and calmly to soothe his somewhat frazzled nerves, Owen swivels on his heel and approaches the nest, settling down beside it to watch. The eggs are oval in shape, each slightly smaller than a box of tissues. Unable to resist, he stretches out a hand and touches the surface of the nearest one. It's warm and covered in a leathery, pebbly texture. It rocks against his palm and he marvels at the feeling of weight shifting inside the shell.

The room is too quiet for his liking, so he begins to speak, falling back into that croon he uses with his animals, soft and gentle and encouraging. "Hey there, pretty girls, it's time to come out. I know you can do it. Come on… come on…" For a moment, he feels foolish, knowing that cameras are watching him, but then he decides that he doesn't care and focuses on the hatching instead.

A fragment of the egg he'd momentarily touched suddenly bulges, the hairline crack expanding considerably. The elastic membrane underneath stretches with the broken fragments, glistening and bloody. Owen's heart pounds at the small peeps that begin emitting from within the shaking shell. "That's it, that's it… come on…"

More cracks, more fragments. Owen notes the lack of an eggtooth piercing through the shell–instead, it seems that baby raptors come fully equipped with claws and fangs. Delightful.

Entirely consumed in the hatching process, Owen leans forward and cups his hands around the flexing shell, radiating gentleness and warmth and safety. "Come on, pretty lady…"

A brilliantly golden eye appears in the gap, foggy with exhaustion and fear. The nictitating lid licks over the pupil sluggishly. The hatchling is obviously unused to such strenuous exercising of its body, and for a moment, all activity stills in the shell.

Owen chuckles lowly. "Come on, girl, don't give up on it now. Almost there, I promise." He receives a weak cheep in return for his motivation and movement resumes. The largest crack yet appears in the lower half of the egg–a moment later, a hindleg pushes through. Tiny claws, shining with embryonic fluid, wiggle in the sterilized air, as though waving hello. Owen laughs again.

He's witnessed dozens of animal births and hatchings in his lifetime, yet for some reason, this gets to him–he can't help it, can't fight it. The hatchling just feels so… so right to him. An ache he's always seemed to had itching at the back of his mind subsides instantly, mellow and content. If he was a cat, he'd be purring.

Another feeble cheep, and the shell splits in two, leaving a confused, infantile Velociraptor sprawled in the pieces. Owen immediately moves to begin sponging the fluid off the baby with one of the soft cloths piled up by the nest. The tiny dinosaur writhes weakly in his hands, letting out soft, wailing pips all the while. Hungry hungry scared hungry feed me scared resonates around it. Owen clicks his tongue in empathy and slides his hands under the little body, lifting it from the mess. Its tail slides between his fingers, swinging tiredly. He lodges her in his lap, unmindful of the fluids staining his pants, and reaches for the feed bucket with a free hand, dragging it across the grassy floor.

"You're so strong, breaking out by yourself, beautiful," he tells her as he plucks one of the tiny cubes of meat from the bucket. She peeps in answer. Her brilliant eyes are open fully now, the slit pupils focused on his face. Their intensity might startle some, but Owen finds it oddly comforting. He offers the cube by rubbing it tantalizingly against the corner of her maw. Instantly, her hunger-cries end abruptly and she snaps her head to the side, milk-white teeth latching onto the meat with fervor. Her initial movements are klutzy and for a second she simply holds the meat between her jaws. Realizing she'll need some help, Owen gently massages the stubby column of her throat, coaxing her to swallow. She obeys after a few moments and gulps the whole cube in one go. A miniature tongue peeks out, scrubbing her teeth, and she clicks her jaw. Eager more good more hungry she relates, and Owen complies. They continue in this manner until she is sated and blinking drowsily.

The other eggs have ceased their movements and show no signs of continuing the hatching process. Worried, Owen touches a fingertip to his earpiece and waits for the buzz signaling the connection.

"Doc, is something wrong with the others? They've stopped moving."

A beat of silence before Dr. Wu answers, his voice made tinny by the speaker. "Movement of the eggs doesn't always mean hatching. The rest may have a few days yet to go–cover them up with one of the thermal blankets by the nest."

The raptor in his lap chirps, tilting her head in birdlike motions. Owen directs a beaming smile at her and imitates the same noise back. The infant wobbles in shock, slit pupils fat in surprise. Grinning, he slides her to the crook of his arm so he can shimmy around the nest to reach the insulating blankets. The baby raptor in his arms watches everything hazily, her claws weakly gripping the edge of his sleeve. When he has the eggs situated nicely, he turns his attention back to the hatchling.

She is a very pale gray with a discreet, almost unnoticeable blue sheen down her back but Owen isn't alarmed by the lack of coloration. Having read the logs recovered from the first attempt at rearing Velociraptors decades ago in John Hammond's park, he knows that newly-hatched Velociraptors gain their coloring and final developments in the first weeks of their life. He runs his fingers down her curved spine, following the light blue smattering across her flanks.

"How does the name Blue sound?" he whispers.

She doesn't answer–her eyelids have already slid shut and she rests soundly in his warm hands.

* * *

 **A/N: SOS. IM STUCK ON A FAMILY VACATION IN THE SOUTHERN MOUNTAINS OF USA AND THE CABIN HAS NO WIFI OR DATA OR AIR CONDITIONING** **AND I HAVE HAD SEVERAL ASSASINATION ATTEMPTS CARRIED OUT ON MY LIFE BY MWMBERS OF THE ARACHNUS DEATHICUS SPECIES (re: GIANT %# &$ !% SPIDERS). **

**I am literally using McDonalds WiFi to post this for you guys, so freaking review. And send the Navy.**


	3. New Life

**A/N: Fear not, my companions. I made it out of the cabin experience alive. Although my family discovered intensely creepy things about the cabin, like demonic movies in my room, a creepy hidden crawlspace in our closet, stiff closet doors that opened over night, sounds of footsteps coming up the stairs and walking around the kitchen, items dropping, glimpses of limbs darting around corners...nonetheless, I am very glad to be home. And to have wifi.**

 **Also, you guys post some of the most thoughtful and hilarious reviews ever. My thanks to those who passed word along to the government of my need for assistance. xD**

* * *

It doesn't take long for Owen to realize how thankful he is that all the eggs didn't hatch unanimously–one baby raptor is more than enough.

After a short, ten-minute nap, the newly-christened Blue rouses herself fully, huge amber eyes flicking restlessly around her surroundings. Her newborn status is very apparent in her motions–her slit pupils take a bit to focus and sometimes her limbs twitch uncontrollably as though shooing off a fly. Owen briefly rubs the pad of his thumb down the tiny crests protecting her eye sockets. Like a human infant reacting to an offered finger, her claws immediately wrap and curl tightly around the digit, clutching it close to her body. That's when Owen makes an important discovery–the claws of a freshly-hatched Velociraptor may seem deceptively small and thin, but they're really just as sharp and wicked as needles. He feels pinpricks of pain as the razor-like tips begin to pierce his skin and his first instinct is to bat the source of the discomfort away, but Owen has never embodied anything except control. Instead, he keeps his breathing steady and carefully monitors his movements as he leans over to disentangle the onyx weapons from his hand.

Ten minutes old and she's already drawn blood. He's strangely entertained and relieved. Several times previous to Blue's hatching, he had wondered if the scientists had robbed, by way of their extensive fiddling, the incubating raptors of their wildness, their defiance. He doesn't want a tame lap dop. His soul stirs in discontent at the very thought, shuddering, keening for something more, for a chance to plunge recklessly and boldly into new territories.

Blue squeaks when he gently removes his hand from her grip and subtly shakes off several crimson droplets. Her vocal cords aren't even near mature yet, Owen knows, and so her range of vocalization is reduced to a litany of pips, clicks, and cheeps. Even so, the variety of expression is amazing–many animals learn their distinctive cries by observing their parents. For Blue to already possess a wide vocabulary means the prehistoric instinct has not been wiped out by the genetic tinkering.

"First lesson: no clawing Daddy," he admonishes softly, shaking his scratched finger at her in disapproval. He lowers his voice when he does, dropping it to a pitch where a rough, growly undertone harshens the words. Her triangular jaws part slightly, exhaling in a hiss, while her eyes lock onto his finger and struggle to follow the waving motions.

Owen boops her playfully on her blunt snout and she sways back, peeping in surprise. He shows her his finger again, ensuring that the little blood trails moving sluggishly over his skin are visible.

"No. Clawing. Daddy," he growls again. Connecting his drawn blood with his disapproval. He doesn't expect her to understand fully, not when she's less than an hour old. But foundations must be laid for a house to be built.

In truth, he's not mad at all. But animals invest their attention into body language, into tone and delivery rather than pretty, empty words. So he makes sure to bunch his shoulders together and flex the muscles in his upper body, hissing softly. Dominance. Control. He projects it like cold air flowing off ice.

Blue chatters, head tilting rapidly from side to side. Her body curls and she ducks her head, shying away from eye contact. Amusement ripples through him. She's behaving like a puppy caught doing something it shouldn't have, and she seems to believe that if she avoids direct eye confrontation then he really can't find fault with her.

Owen senses confusion and tiny flickers of vague, undirected fear–which makes perfect sense. She's young and the world and everything in it is frighteningly new to her. In comparison, she just seems… _small_ to him. Tiny, and new, her life as vulnerable and delicate as a flickering, stubby flame on a fresh candle.

The delayed realization hits him like battering ram.

He... _feels_ her. Like warmth from a fire, like a breeze tousling his hair.

Owen has always been blessed with a vivid imagination and extraordinarily developed observation skills–and thus he's always attributed his incredible talent with animals towards these intrinsic qualities. When he imagines what an animal is feeling…that's exactly what it is. Imagination. A hypothesis based on intense examinations of body language.

But this–this extends far beyond that. Beyond any animal he's ever worked with.

He sets her down in the empty nest and withdraws, curious and exhilarated. His heart beats in his throat like war drums.

Like a bolt of lightning striking a pole, a flashback of his experience on Isla Sorna seizes his mind with paralytic strength–he remembers seeing the raptors close-up, the way his mind fogged and smoothed out the background details like a thumb pressing irregularities out of clay. How he focused on them with such an intensity that he felt like he was walking amongst them, sitting behind their eyes. How he projected words to accompany their actions.

Blue flips herself over in the nest, squawking plaintively. Owen shakes off the disturbing and frankly ludicrous thoughts he's been entertaining in favor of watching the baby raptor take her first steps.

Her muscles tremble with effort, her toes splay as though expecting the earth to drop out from beneath her at any given point–but she walks. A scant hour old and she walks. Pride bubbles up in him. Her claws briefly get stuck in the packed twigs of the nest. She tears them loose with an annoyed snap of her jaws. Her first obstacle, climbing over the edge of the nest. For a few seconds, she stares at it fuzzily, head cocked in deliberation.

" _When you look at them, you see the intelligence in their eyes–you can see them working things out."_ Words recovered from the journal of Robert Muldoon, deceased game warden of the first Jurassic Park. Killed by raptors.

He was right in what he said.

"Come on, girl," Owen coaxes, wondering if he's established a bond enough with the infant that his presence is enough to beckon her onward. She chirps alertly. Questioning. She's not tall enough to see over the nest–for all she knows, her world has been shrunk to that of the interior circumference of the nest.

"I'm over here, Blue. Come on," he keeps up a steady stream of words so that she can use them as a location check. She falls silent. Twigs crunch and snap as she digs her powerfully-clawed hindlegs into the nest's walls to gain footholds. Her smaller, though no less dexterous, forelimbs allow her to anchor herself to the curved surface. When her triangular head pops over the nest, Owen beams.

 _Good girl,_ he thinks proudly. _What a clever girl._

Blue chirrups softly, twisting her slender neck to itch at a patch of her shoulder with her snout. To any untrained outsider's eye, she would appear to be only dealing with a sudden irritant in her skin, but Owen just... _knows_. Smugness drips from the actions–the lazy, relaxed tail, the loosely-dangling forelimbs, the idle grooming motions.

 _Did it I Blue did clever girl good girl._ The random words float, unbidden, uncalled, to Owen's mind, startling him. He didn't think them. He knows because of the poor, clumsy grammar structure, the simple intent behind the unskilled message. It's as if someone just poured jumbled words and feelings into his head, like soup into a bowl. They're still in his mind-voice–it's not as if he heard a disembodied voice speaking as if in his ear–but something about them feels backwards, different. Oil sliding over water–together, but distinct.

After conquering a feat such as climbing out of the nest, stumbling across the floor to Owen is barely a hindrance at all. Blue clambers into his lap, hunger-cries already warbling softly from deep in her throat once again. Hatchlings need to eat often, especially so in their first few hours of life. She fastens her claws into his shirt to form a hold and performs a tiny hop. A narrow tongue flickers insistently over his cheek, near the corner of his mouth. Instinctual behavior; a hatchling seeking food from its provider.

Well, he can't exactly cough up globs of meat, so he draws the food bucket closer once again and begins another round of feeding.

* * *

When two days have passed, Owen finally admits his suspicions to himself. The other eggs have grown cold and sterile. The warm, milky-new presences he would imagine while running his hands over their leathery surfaces have extinguished, leaving behind gaping voids of nothingness. Blue, who in the span of two days has learned to ride on his shoulder, nuzzles their chill exteriors, puffs dismissively, and returns to gnawing fiercely on a lock of Owen's hair.

Owen sits down heavily, a stone in his stomach. Blue manages to clip off a few strands of his hair with her teeth and instantly begins sneezing. He puts her in his lap and strokes down her spine, just the way she sometimes permits him to, and activates the comm. link.

"Dr., I think the other embryos are dead," he says glumly. Actually, he's quite certain they are, but he's seen firsthand how sciencey-types react to someone with confidence butting into their fields. Might as well let them draw the same conclusions and pretend it was their observation in the first place.

A beat of radio silence, and then Dr. Wu's voice filters into his ear. _"Really? What a shame, what a shame."_ He sounds disappointed, but from a clinical perspective. _What a shame,_ Owen's mother once said when she dropped a carton of milk and it exploded across the floor. She sighed and then cleaned up the spill and that was the end of the matter. _"Fortunately, we have a few other batches already in the process–all of them different DNA mixtures this time. We're hoping that offering a more varied field of experiments will yield clearer results."_ The musing tone suddenly brightens into excited curiosity. _"But how about_ _001? How is she? I assume you've been taking detailed notes?"_

For a long moment, Owen is stunned into silence by the abrupt switches in tone Dr. Wu exhibited throughout the conversation. The casual disregard for pointlessly lost life. The reference to Blue as nothing more than a number. The cold stone in his stomach expands, grating on him like sandpaper.

" _Blue_ is fine," he sends back, sure to put emphasis on her name, "and yes, I've been taking good notes." Irritation washes over him as the condescension towards his experience and skill finally begins to take a toll–he doesn't have all those spiffy degrees in Behavioral Science for nothing, after all. Despite what he feels, however, none of it enters his calm voice, besides a steel-like thread of authority. "May I remind you, Dr. Wu, that I've done things like this before."

Okay, so maybe raising Velociraptors is different than looking after lion cubs, but that's besides the point.

 _"_ _Of course, my apologies. A team will be sent in shortly to retrieve the failed eggs. Do you need us to bring in anything else?"_ Polite, superficially thoughtful. Owen can almost imagine the cordial smile on the other end of the line.

 _Beer,_ he thinks humorlessly, a tad wistful. _And Netflix._ "Unless your lab techies have cooked up baby Velociraptor colic soother, then no, I'm good."

Dr. Wu laughs. _"I'll be sure to pass on the recommendation."_ The link goes silent and Owen knows the exchange is over.

For the duration of the conversation, Blue had been staring curiously at his blinking earpiece, listening to the tinny speaker in great confusion.

Her translucent eyelid licks thoughtfully slow over an amber iris. Owen watches the slit pupil dilate and constrict as she sorts out whether or not the technology wedged in his ear is a living thing or not. Lately, she's been learning several fundamental distinctions between things that are Living and things that are Not Living. Owen had watched in amazement as she would experimentally close her jaws around a blanket to see if she could gather any reaction or incite movement; sniff objects like the nest or the turf and then inhale Owen's scent, obviously sensing differences between the two.

Being privy to the unfolding development of a new creature is mind-boggling awesome. Even if he has to isolate himself in a faux-jungle habitat so that the infant dinosaur can imprint solely on him.

Oh well. He can always catch up on his Netflix at a later date.

* * *

Four days pass. Owen finds himself growing astonishingly used to the small perimeters of the Nursery and the bathroom alcove. To Blue, it must seem as though this room is the entire world, and after hours spent locked up in it, Owen's almost starting to believe it too.

As strange as the isolation from the rest of humankind is, it does wonders to strengthen the bond between man and raptor. It removes him from the clutter and chatter of daily human life, lets him clear his mind and reflect on potential training methods.

He had been counting on the introduction of the other baby Velociraptors to help Blue determine her sense of self; he certainly doesn't want to raise a Velociraptor that thinks she's a human. Owen's read too many articles explaining the negative side effects of such total imprintation. Now, after factoring in the sudden death of the rest of the clutch, and the additional two weeks that will be necessary before the newest batch of eggs is ready to be moved into the Nursery, he has his work cut out for him.

Some animal workers wear headpieces resembling the likeness of the adult animal when interacting with the infants, so that they learn to familiarize with others of their kind. He doesn't exactly have access to a Raptor head helmet, though.

In other animals, like puppies, imprinting is a process that can take place between eight weeks and four months of age–despite Hollywood's glamorous portrayal of it being some instant, unbreakable bond-forming experience. (Oh, how he hates _Twilight_.) However, Blue is vastly more intelligent than most other species–perhaps even more than orca whales or primates. It wouldn't be a stretch to assume the period to be shorter and closer to birth than average. In fact, Owen has already witnessed signs of it. She takes food from his hands trustingly and follows him around like a duckling. At night, though she appears to be more restless than during the day (perhaps due to origins as a nocturnal hunter?), she obligingly settles down to sleep in her nest, right next to Owen's cot.

Another day passes before an idea occurs to Owen. He presses the comm. link to open up a channel, grinning. "Dr. Wu? I'm gonna need a clicker."

* * *

 **A/N: Reviews ward off the cabin demon. :3 Have a lovely day!**


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